kurozato/kokuto

[torakris]

another popular product, kokuto table rolls

[Phish]

Japanese product never sieze to amaze me...

great find Kris!

[torakris]

two new finds

kurozato coated satsumaimo (Japanese sweet potato) chips, these were delicious!

and

baisen kokuto candy

these hard candies have three layers of kurozato, the main part is a kurozato flavored hard candy, inside is creamy kurozato filling and the outside side is coated with roasted kurozato, these may beat out the caramels I love so much!

[Hiroyuki]

OK, if you like both kurozatou and peanuts, then I'm sure you'll love kurozatou-coated peanuts.

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My wife bought kurozato-coated peanuts today. Nothing unusual, but we love them.

[Pan]

[...]

kurozato coated satsumaimo (Japanese sweet potato) chips, these were delicious![...]

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I have to find those! I'll stop by some local Japanese shops and see if they carry those. Sweet potatoes and molassesy stuff. Yum!

Do satsumaimo taste much different from either the orange or yellow American sweet potatoes?

[torakris]

Do satsumaimo taste much different from either the orange or yellow American sweet potatoes?

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the Japanese ones are much milder in flavor, the satsumaimo (Japanese sweet potato) thread:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...st=0&p=785731

[MomOfLittleFoodies]

I picked up some of the Morinaga Kokuto Caramels when I was visiting my parents in Los Angeles... I love them. The flavor reminds me a lot of the piloncillo that Dad would buy us as a treat occasionally. It has that same molasses-y kick to it.

[Kiem Hwa]

I found this in the 1$ New imports section:

The texture and taste were very sugary - like eating a biscuit entirely made of brown sugar. They are ok, but I think it would be really good to have this texture and flavor in an andagi.

[Kiem Hwa]

We had an Okinawan Fair recently in Daiei.... i picked up this Yomogi-Kokuto.....

It tasted like.....kokuto......I couldnt taste any yomogi flavor

[torakris]

I made some kurozato scones yesterday, I liked them but felt the flavor was a little too weak, maybe if I had iced them with kurozato icing as well...

[torakris]

Last week I had lunch at a Doutour Coffee shop, I was drawn in by the billboard showing a new seasonal drink, a black sugar latte.

The picture from their homepage is better, scroll down to the last picture.

I really loved this! I hope it becomes a regular on their menu...

[SheenaGreena]

mmmmmmmmmmm sugary delicious goodness!!! I could really go for one of those coffee drinks right now

[greenspot]

I like muscovado sugar and dark cane sugar and enjoyed the taste of block kurozato during my holiday in Okinawa last week. It was like eating Scottish fudge. I bought the Kurozato Pretz there too.

Edited July 20, 2007 by greenspot (log)

[prasantrin]

I found a recipe for karinto which calls for sugar--can I just substitute kurozato for the regular sugar on a 1:1 basis?

Also, the recipe doesn't have the glaze. Any suggestions for a kurozato based glaze? And how and when do I glaze them? While they're still hot, or do I wait for the cookies to cool? Then dip and drain?

[Hiroyuki]

I found a recipe for karinto which calls for sugar--can I just substitute kurozato for the regular sugar on a 1:1 basis?

Also, the recipe doesn't have the glaze.  Any suggestions for a kurozato based glaze?  And how and when do I glaze them?  While they're still hot, or do I wait for the cookies to cool?  Then dip and drain?

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I have no idea. This recipe calls for 100 g kurozato and 50 g water, and the related recipe for shiro (white) karinto calls for the same weights (100 g shiro zato (white sugar) and 50 g water).

Both recipes simply say to "karameru" (dress, coat) the mixture of kurozato/shiro zato and water. They don't specify when.

Another recipe doesn't specify when to coat the kurozato, either.

Are you going to make karinto by yourself?

[prasantrin]

I have no idea.  This recipe calls for 100 g kurozato and 50 g water, and the related recipe for shiro (white) karinto calls for the same weights (100 g shiro zato (white sugar) and 50 g water).

Both recipes simply say to "karameru" (dress, coat) the mixture of kurozato/shiro zato and water.  They don't specify when.

Another recipe doesn't specify when to coat the kurozato, either.

Are you going to make karinto by yourself?

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I was going to try! I've become addicted to karinto, and the recipe I found seems to be quite easy to make. I was going to try making it before my mother leaves, but I'm not sure I'm up for more deep frying after all the deep frying of my dim sum extravaganza.

Thanks for the glaze recipes. I might do a test with my first batch--dip a few when hot, then a few after they've cooled, and see which I like better.

Have you ever made karinto? My mother said my Filipino grandmother used to make something similar to karinto called lubid lubid. When my mother was at boarding school, my grandmother would send them to her and at night, my mother and her friends would crawl under her bed and snack on them.

If I do make it, I'll post about it!

[helenjp]

From my favorite easy Japanese sweets and snacks book by Okumura Ayao, "Okashi tsukutte, ocha de mo ireyo ka". You wouldn't be following this recipe would you? Because this book is usually straightforward, but the karinto recipe isn't clearly written.

The method is much the same as for daigaku imo - fry X in a wok, drain off oil, make an oily syrup with water and sugar in the bottom of the wok, heat till bubbly, return X and toss to coat.

The karinto ingredients given in my book are put together like so:

Dough:

Flour 200g + 2 t baking powder

1 med egg mixed with 1 T white sugar, 1 T oil

Make dough, kneading just slightly, cut into strips, fry at a fairly low temperature (160-165deg C in a wok, remove and drain dough strips when puffy and golden.

So far, most recipes are about the same, right?

Drain oil out of wok. Get a couple of tablespoons of whole toasted sesame seeds ready to hand.

Kurozato 160g

50 ml water

Dump in bottom of unwashed wok, shake over steady-strong heat till sugar bubbles up in coarse bubbles. Needs to be covered pretty much all over the surface in bubbles.

Dump in the fried dough sticks, turning to coat in the glaze, and sprinkle over the sesame seeds. I think the dough sticks should be hot or warm - temperature of the glaze is likely to drop too soon if they are cold.

Quickly dump out onto a rack and pull apart with chopsticks.

Photos of karinto-making process and recipe in Japanese

There is a similar Chinese snack where the karinto are made smaller, glazed with a white sugar glaze, and are not pulled apart, but rather pressed into a greased tray, then turned out and cut into squares when cold.

[prasantrin]

From my favorite easy Japanese sweets and snacks book by Okumura Ayao, "Okashi tsukutte, ocha de mo ireyo ka". You wouldn't be following this recipe would you?  Because this book is usually straightforward, but the karinto recipe isn't clearly written.

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Thanks for the recipe! I found this recipe through google--I think Hiroyuki posted a link to it once, too. And I wish I could use the book you mentioned, but I'd have to be able to read Japanese, first! (I can usually read enough to get through most recipes, but sometimes I miss out on very important information!)

[Blether]

On a whim I picked up a pack of kurozato when I was buying everyday sugar and salt.

I want to try to make treacle toffee with this stuff - isn't it after all, just the whole product of boiled sugar cane juice ? This time I boiled it up with a little butter:

I was concerned that the lumps weren't melting down, and added some water to help after spending some time beating them up with my wooden spoon. I boiled to 125C and ended up with this:

- it's firm & grainy but has proved popular (and kept me going for a day on the ski slopes). Next, I want to try with some invert syrup (probably honey), maybe a little glucose, try to get and maintain proper solution, and boil to a lower temperature for something smooth and chewy.

[Hiroyuki]

Interesting. Not being familiar with treacle toffee, I had to do some googling on it. It must be a popular sweet in your coutry.

[Blether]

Treacle toffee is traditional in Britain, and said to be particularly popular in Wales. There's a culture of eating sugar-based foods - from a myriad of confectionery styles through biscuits (cookies) and cakes - in the UK and UK-linked areas, that I believe is the legacy of imperial adventure in the tropics and the marketing of sugar formerly produced in 'the colonies'.

A typical recipe nowadays, involves sugar and 'treacle' - a less intense version of molasses. I think kurozato can stand in for both. In fact what I made isn't treacle toffee, because there's so much crystallised sugar in it, but the flavour is effectively the same as treacle toffee.

[Blether]

I tried again. This time I added 4oz of Hanamasa's mizuame, and 200ml of water. I started with 100ml of water, and added the rest when the mixture reached a boil whilst there were still a number of rocks of sugar undissolved. Even using the lowest gas possible from the very start, and adding the extra water, I still had one last little rock of sugar that I had to break up with a wooden spoon to get everything in solution. It then boiled at around 105.5C, and I boiled it up to 115C (soft ball):

It's a proper toffee this time, but too soft. I can mark it and take out lumps as above, but an hour later it's flowed back to:

[helenjp]

Hmmm. It's rather reassuring to see a Brit having problems with toffee!

What is the Hanamasa mizu-ame made from? Some people seem to think that you really need to use rice-malt, others think it doesn't matter if it's barley or sweet potato or whatever...I don't know.

Edit: I see on a Japanese site that somebody was grumbling about how thin the Hanamasa mizu-ame is...stays runny even in the fridge. It is true that usually refrigerated mizu-ame is so stiff it's hard to get a spoon into it.

Proportions: I see everything from 60-75% sugar : 40-25% mizu-ame, don't know if there is a "perfect" proportion.

[Kerry Beal]

I tried again. This time I added 4oz of Hanamasa's mizuame, and 200ml of water. I started with 100ml of water, and added the rest when the mixture reached a boil whilst there were still a number of rocks of sugar undissolved. Even using the lowest gas possible from the very start, and adding the extra water, I still had one last little rock of sugar that I had to break up with a wooden spoon to get everything in solution. It then boiled at around 105.5C, and I boiled it up to 115C (soft ball):

It's a proper toffee this time, but too soft. I can mark it and take out lumps as above, but an hour later it's flowed back to:

Try taking it to 121ºC.

[Hiroyuki]

I tried again. This time I added 4oz of Hanamasa's mizuame, and 200ml of water. I started with 100ml of water, and added the rest when the mixture reached a boil whilst there were still a number of rocks of sugar undissolved. Even using the lowest gas possible from the very start, and adding the extra water, I still had one last little rock of sugar that I had to break up with a wooden spoon to get everything in solution. It then boiled at around 105.5C, and I boiled it up to 115C (soft ball):

I have a very simple question (sorry if it sounds so stupid): Why didn't you break up all the rocks of black sugar before boiling?